"Brown" and Other Poems by Noelia Cerna

Brown

The brown, corporate girl enters the van. Typical, soccer mom van. Suburban staple. Her white boss is driving, while she and three white coworkers discuss the day.

As the conversation fills the air she sits, looking out the window, watching the city roll by aware that she is the only brown girl in this space.
It is not a feeling of fear that fills her chest but one of sadness.
Suddenly longing to look back and catch a flash of brown

or black skin amongst the sea of white. She walks past the storefronts trailing her party, an island
locked in the Central US.
The door to the restaurant opens and the beat of the latino music

wafts out with the smells of seasoned carne and cooking onions, Spanish words surround her and she steps into this home.
The cooks are all brown. They turn the carne on the fire
as they dance to the music and laugh.

It is loud and warm and smells like a fritanga.
Brightly colored banners hang in rows spreading across the ceiling
the colors warm and inviting. They remind her of the open air markets
where the brightly colored shirts hang throughout tents
and the smell of cooking meat wafts between the aisles
as the street vendors call out to the passersby to enter their stores
calling them
queens,
sweethearts, loves,
princesses,
corazon
Wicker lanterns are spaced across the ceiling mingling with the colored banners
they sway with the breeze casting shadows below
twinkling in the dark room like mother's prayers in the night
as two parents prepare themselves to bring two little girls to the promised land
hoping they would not forget the histories in their skin.
Laughing with her white coworkers the brown girl bites into her carne asada street tacos letting the flavor fill her mouth and Narcisco Yepes playing Romance wafts through her mind reminding her of a time she was a little girl and her father
would serenade her with his Spanish guitar
and her curly hair was beautiful, and her brown skin was enough
and she remembers what it feels like to be proud of who she is
so she rides back to the office looking out the window, smiling now
and when she reaches her desk pulls the scrunchy out of her hair fluffs it
into a frizzy mass of curls lets it hang loose around her shoulders
puts her headphones in and ends the day with Narcisco
with wild hair, brilliant smile, looking like the little girl her parents raised.

Rust

This is how it begins​—​ a slow decay, rust​— traditions dusty and unused, a film of cultural rust.

I break my spine to display humility as woman
should. He says “duty.” I see rust.
To cover and conceal. To cause damage. To break.
My pride almost abandoned and grown over with rust.
He said beauty is in the ability to bow your head.
My mother learned to make herself small, dress in rust.

My back is iron rod. I cannot bend.
It will not fold into this mold, won’t yield to rust
and I am too loud, too quick to raise my voice,
my questions grenades blowing apart his expectations, rust

Bowed heads mean surrender and I do not make habits
of gifting him wars, abandoning my pride to rust.
My stubborness will be my end but I dig in
my heels anyways; his anger will fade. Rust.
His disappointment will ebb like ocean waves.
I am battleship. I will break before I rust.
As water always meets the shore, salt to sand
I, Noelia, will find my path. I will not yield or rust.

Tourism and Soda

The tourists
could never figure it out
“la bolsita se corta asi”
my father would explain to them
“cut the corner of the bag, here.”
They would tilt the bag awkwardly
and hold it close to their bodies
spilling the liquid down their expensive clothing.

The vendors on the sidewalks lined with palm trees

would sell soda in bags
from their brightly painted carts to the passersby

And yet, they could never understand how to drink it

“Van a botar la soda!”
one vendor would say
scratching his head
in amazement and amusement
My father shows the tourists
how to tip the soda
to the back of the bag
so that they could cut the corners
and drink the cold, sticky sweetness from them

“Why can’t you people just sell them in cups?

Like normal folks?”
one woman asked
We would simply laugh and respond
“Pura Vida”
as we watched the soda dribble down their shirts

and mingle with the dirt beneath their feet
Dirt that was not good enough
to soil their Nikes